Trial by Ordeal

Ordeals of various forms are found all over the world. In medieval Europe, the three most popular were the ordeals of hot and cold water and of hot iron. The oldest of these—of Frankish origin and the only form to be mentioned from the earliest reference to trial by ordeal in about A.D. 500 until about 800—is hot water. The procedure required that the individual reach into a boiling caldron to retrieve some object, normally a ring or a stone.^[39] During the reign of Charlemagne, 768–814, several other forms of ordeal came into being, and for the next four centuries, ordeal was a major judicial instrument. The ordeal of cold water called for the individual to be cast into a stream or pond. The ordeal of hot iron initially required the person to walk over nine red-hot plowshares; somewhat later, carrying a red-hot iron for three paces increased in popularity.^[40]

As with trial by battle, the ordeal was a test that established conditions where, in the absence of witnesses or other sufficient human evidence, the decision of innocence or guilt was referred to God. In the case of cold water, God would signify his judgment by causing the innocent to sink and the guilty to float. This was thought to be so because water, a pure substance, rejects evil. Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims (845–882) and major advocate for the ordeal, explained that the guilty party "is unable to sink into the waters over which the voice of the majesty of the Lord has

thundered, because the pure nature of water does not receive a human nature which has been cleansed of all deceit by the water of baptism but has subsequently been reinfected by lies."^[41] In the ordeals of hot water and hot iron, the innocent emerge unharmed, while the guilty suffer grievously. The rationale for this is, variously, that with the help of God, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed'nego walked unscathed through Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace,^[42] that the burning bush through which God communicated with Moses was not consumed by the flames,^[43] that Lot was not harmed by the fire that destroyed Sodom,^[44] that the faithful will not be harmed by the flames on judgment day, and that fire seeks and burns out wickedness, to which it has a natural antipathy.^[45]

Precisely what qualified as not being harmed by the hot water or hot iron is not, however, entirely clear. The suspect's hand was bandaged after carrying the hot iron and was inspected three days later. Bartlett states that if the hand "was 'clean'—that is, healing without suppuration or discoloration—he was innocent or vindicated; if the wound was unclean, he was guilty."^[46] This is a clear indication that the innocent were anticipated to be burned. On the very next page, however, he refers to expectations that innocent suspects would not be burned at all by hot iron or hot water. Perhaps these matters varied with time and place and with the prejudices of those who officiated at the ordeal.

Most important, ordeals by their very design traded in miracles, and miracles tend to become increasingly miraculous with time and retelling. Hence the most memorable accounts of ordeals seldom concern themselves with nuances in how well a wound is healing. A favorite motif is the queen who, accused of adultery, vindicates herself by the ordeal. A prototype is the case of the barren Queen Teutberga of Lotharingia. In 858, King Lothar, her husband, wished to marry his mistress and legitimize their children in order to have an heir to his throne, so he accused Teutberga of a variety of sexual crimes. Her innocence was proven by the ordeal of hot water, undergone on her behalf, however, by one of her retainers.^[47] The embellishment of the theme is apparent in the

account of the ordeal undergone by Queen Emma, Edward the Confessor's mother, [which] is certainly fictional. . . . Emma was

accused by the villain of the piece, Robert of Jumieges, the Norman archbishop of Canterbury, of adultery with a bishop (a not uncommon conjunction). The queen offered to undergo the ordeal of hot iron; Robert of Jumieges unwillingly agreed, but only if he could specify particularly rigorous conditions: "let the illfamed woman walk nine paces, with bare feet, on nine red-hot ploughshares—four to clear herself, five to clear the bishop. If she falters, if she does not press one of the ploughshares fully with her feet, if she is harmed the one least bit, then let her be judged a fornicator." The queen, resting her hopes on her innocence and on the help of St Swithun, walked over the ploughshares "and did not see the fire nor feel the burning." In gratitude she gave to St Swithun nine manors, one for each ploughshare, and the bishop accused with her did likewise.^[48]

Events that brought down the guilty were no less miraculous than those that uplifted the innocent. Brother France Maria Guazzo recounts the sad tale of a man convicted of heresy by the ordeal of hot iron in Strasbourg. While he was being conveyed to the stake to be executed, he was exhorted to confess his sin and repent, so that he might not suffer the eternal fire of Gehenna. He did so, and immediately his hand was healed. When the judge presiding at the execution saw no trace of a burn on the hand, he concluded that the man must be innocent and released him. Then the complications began:

This man had a wife not far from the city, who had heard nothing of what we have just told. When he came to her rejoicing, and saying: "Blessed be God, who has today delivered me from the death of my body and my soul!" and told her how it had been, she answered: "What have you done, most unhappy one, what have you done? Have you recanted your true and holy faith because of a moment's pain? It would have been better for you if your body could have been burned a hundred times, than that you should once draw back from the true faith." Alas! who is not seduced by the voice of the serpent? Forgetting the great goodness of God to him, forgetting that undoubted miracle, he listened to his wife's advice and again embraced his former heresy. But God did not forget to avenge Himself for so great ingratitude, and wounded the hand of each of them. The burn re-appeared upon the heretic's

hand, and since his wife was the cause of his returning to his error she was made a partaker in the backslider's pain. The burn was so severe that it penetrated to the bones of their hands: and because they dared not in the town give vent to the cries which the pain wrung from them, they fled to a neighbouring wood where they howled like wolves. What need I say more? They were taken and led back to the city and together cast upon the fire which was not yet quite extinguished, and were burned to ashes. What, I ask, is the truth of the matter? Does the flame follow heresy, even as a shadow follows the body?^[49]

Although, in general, the ordeal was considered to be appropriate to lower classes while the nobility had more frequent recourse to compurgation and trial by battle, certain rank and other distinctions may also be drawn between types of ordeals. If a person of quality was to be tried by ordeal, hot iron was the means of choice, hot water and cold water being suitable for plebeians.^[50] Another distinction, this time between hot iron and cold water, had to do with speed of result. Trial by hot iron demanded a three-day waiting period before the verdict could be determined by the condition of the bandaged hand, while the result of the cold water ordeal was immediate: the individual either sank or floated. There was, therefore,

no neutral period of waiting in which crowds would disperse and emotions calm, and the cold water trial of heretics was thus particularly susceptible to crowd influence and mob justice. At Soissons in 1114, for instance, the condemned heretics were lynched by the crowd while the bishop's court was still discussing the sentence.^[51]

One might be tempted to imagine that trial by ordeal waned as the European mind lost its confidence in miracles in the face of advancing rationalism and naturalism. Such, however, was far from the case. The heyday of the ordeal came to a close in the twelfth century, long before such new modes of thinking had taken root.^[52] Ordeal was done in not by protoscientists who doubted miracles but by scholastic theologians who accepted them implicitly. Their main argument (which applied to trial by

battle as well as to trial by ordeal) was that these techniques tempted God. They set up situations that invited—even presumed to guarantee—a miracle to be performed by God in the interest of justice. But, the scholastics argued, a miracle is a free act of God; it may or may not occur for God's own good reasons. Therefore, ordeal and combat are unreliable as judicial tests, and those who promote them are impious in their belief that human connivances can force the hand of God. Such arguments had been advanced, even by popes, as early as the ninth century. However, they had effect only as the centralized church grew in power and influence. By the early thirteenth century, that process had reached the point that an official condemnation of trial by ordeal by the Lateran Council of 1215, under the papacy of Innocent III, was sufficient to bring the practice essentially to an end.^[53]